Peabo Bryson, soul singer known as the Voice of Love, dies at 75

[NEW YORK] Peabo Bryson, a silky smooth singer whose lengthy resume of chart-topping soul records – many of them duets with renowned female singers – earned him the nickname the Voice of Love, died on Tuesday (Jun 2) in Marietta, Georgia. He was 75.

His family confirmed the death, at a hospital, from complications of a stroke. Bryson, who won two Grammys for the Disney movie hits Beauty and the Beast and A Whole New World, lived in Atlanta.

Peabo, his first album, was released in 1976, when funk and disco ruled the airwaves. But four of its sensual ballads – It’s Just a Matter of Time, Underground Music, Just Another Day and I Can Make It Better – reached the top 30 on the US soul charts, establishing him as an heir to his idols Sam Cooke and Nat King Cole.

Bryson went on to dominate the soul and R&B charts for nearly two decades. His songs dealt with complex relationships and passionate love, themes that spoke to the adult contemporary listeners who made up the core of his fan base.

“Relationships are a vast thing,” he told The Chicago Tribune in 1986. “They’re like people: Everyone is different. So I write about them as I see them, and as I have experienced them.”

Pairing up

Through the 1980s, Bryson developed a reputation as a reliable duet partner, paired with powerful female singers such as Regina Belle, Roberta Flack and Natalie Cole, Nat King Cole’s daughter.

Tonight, I Celebrate My Love, a duet with Flack, reached No 4 on Billboard’s US adult contemporary chart in 1983, his first of many songs to crack the top 20. The next year, he reached the top spot on the same chart with a solo effort, If Ever You’re in My Arms Again.

But it was in the early 1990s that Bryson had his biggest hits. Sung with Celine Dion, Beauty and the Beast (1991), his platinum-selling version of the theme song from the Disney animated film of the same name, was nominated for best song and best record at the Grammys and won the award for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals.

He repeated the feat a year later, winning the same award for his version of A Whole New World, the theme from the Disney movie Aladdin, performed with Regina Belle. It reached No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, knocking off Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You after a 14-week run.

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Both tracks also won best song awards at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards, though those awards went to the songs’ writers.

Bryson repeatedly resisted pressure from record labels and other musicians to embrace a more contemporary pop, rock or hip-hop style, insisting that he had to stay true to his roots, even if it meant passing up bigger pay cheques.

“I have to make music without giving up who I am,” he told The New Pittsburgh Courier in 1992, “not for any pop dream or for any promise of greater success.”

Starting young, rising fast

Robert Peapo Bryson was born on Apr 13, 1951, in Greenville, South Carolina. His father, Telford Copeland, was rarely present, and he was raised mostly by his mother, Marie Bryson, and his maternal grandparents on their farm in nearby Mauldin, South Carolina.

His mother encouraged his early interest in music, taking him to see acts such as Little Richard and Cooke.

“I saw all the greats, and by the time I was five or six, I could sing right along with them,” he told The Philadelphia Tribune in 2022.

“When I was that little, I could sing most of their songs, astonishing people in the audience around me who couldn’t believe that music was coming out of a little boy.”

After winning a talent contest at 12, he began singing backup with a local band, Al Freeman and the Upsetters. In his teenage years, he joined his musical mentor, Moses Dillard, in the band Dillard and the Tex-Town Display, which toured the country.

He got his nickname, Peabo, from Dillard, who had trouble pronouncing his middle name.

The band was mediocre, but talent scouts picked out Bryson as a potential solo artist. He released his self-titled debut album with Bang Records and then moved to Capitol in 1977.

In 2003, the Internal Revenue Service accused Bryson of failing to pay some US$1.2 million in taxes and seized much of his property, including his Grammy trophies, hundreds of pairs of shoes and a key to the city of Miami, all of which were sold at auction.

Bryson’s survivors include his wife, Tanya Boniface Bryson; their son, Robert, known as Kit; a daughter from a previous relationship, Linda Bryson; and three grandchildren.

Bryson’s fan base skewed female, but he said he also tried to write songs for men.

“I’m trying to show men that it’s okay to be sensitive and sensual,” he told The Philadelphia Tribune, “instead of feeling like they have to be macho.” NYTIMES